‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' Mark 10:21

This is the gospel we love to hate, or should I say, hate to love?

We love it because it is in the Bible.  We love it because it is is in the gospels.  We love it because it is what Jesus said, or something like it.  But we don’t much like it, because on the face of it, it is telling us to do something ridiculous.  But then, as we just heard, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword”.

You know the story.  It’s about a young man who wants to know how to get eternal life. 

Of course, context is everything when we come to interpreting the Bible.  The point here, and this is crucial, is that the obsequious and effusive young man probably got under the skin of Jesus for a moment, and so he gave him the full works in a sentence or two.  ‘Go away and keep the commandments’, he says.  The young man must have felt as if he had been poked in the eye, and he declares that like any Jew, he has done this since his youth.  At that point, Jesus warms to him, and comes out with this very difficult saying - difficult for the young man and difficult for us.  ‘If you want eternal life, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor.’  The young man immediately had a near nervous breakdown, as you would.  Wouldn’t you? 

Or would you?  Or would you just do what you and I have done ever since the first time we heard this story, and put it away in a little box at the back of your mind and say with Scarlett O’Hara:  “I can't think about that right now.  If I do, I'll go crazy.  I'll think about that tomorrow.”  Of course, tomorrow never comes.

The disciples didn’t understand it.  We don’t understand it, or, at least, if we do, we rather wish we hadn’t heard it.  It is hard to get away from the challenge of this saying.  In a nutshell, as the passage later says, it is terribly hard to be rich and to be part of God’s Kingdom.  It is terribly hard to be rich and to be a disciple of Christ.

To those Jewish disciples, this went against everything they believed.  Was not the accumulation of wealth a sign that God had richly blessed you?  That, generally speaking, was the teaching of the rabbis.  If you were rich, of course, that carried responsibility.  Riches enabled you to do the good works on which salvation depended.  But here is Jesus pointing out that riches are more likely to be a barrier to true discipleship than a help

If someone has great wealth, and that is a relative term in these very inequitable times, it can be terribly difficult to persuade them to give it away.  It could mean, in worldly terms, financial ruin if it went too far.  It could mean losing status, security and happiness.  Of course you can be rich and happy.  But we believe, do we not, that the essence of being a disciple of Jesus is to put all your trust in God, and to rely on God alone for security and well-being.  Time and time again in the gospels we are urged not to put our trust in wealth.  The last 2 years have shown us that there are deep pitfalls in doing that.  But perhaps recent events might tempt us to take that box out from the back of our minds, and look at it again, to think about it now, and not leave it until tomorrow.  Remember that the title of the story of Scarlett O’Hara was ‘Gone With the Wind’!

When it was proposed that we should renovate our very fine organ, the question was raised about whether or not this was a good stewardship of our money as a church.  It was the right question to ask, and I never had any doubt that we made the right decision.  I know what it is like to live among some of the poorest people in the world, so I was under no illusions.  How gratifying it was, therefore, to learn that the organ was used in a recent recital to raise some £1700 for work among homeless people right here on our own doorstep.

Now that could not have been done without the generosity of people like yourselves.  You gave what you could of your own resources to fund another resource which is here now for all to enjoy
Today, as it happens, is the start of what is known as ‘One World Week’.  It is a movement which apparently has not reached Dumfries yet.  I ought to say that this is the 4th sermon I’ve preached in St John’s in One World Week, so you do know something about it. Permit me to remind you.

For me, the starting point for any notion that we live in one world is the fact that this is God’s world, and that all of humanity is his family.  We are all God’s children, whatever the race, creed or colour.  Lets not be precious about this.  The poor person is my brother, my sister. The terrorist is my brother, be he Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or any other religion you care to name.  The tragedy is that all too often in the name of these religions, the world is torn apart.  No wonder that people turn their back on all forms of organized religion.  We cannot duck this issue.  Just think how, in this neck of the woods some 3 or 400 years ago, Presbyterian and Episcopalian were slaughtering one another in God’s name.  And today, while nations make derisive noises to one another, with even just a veneer of religion in there, we are not that much further on in our quest for one world.  Our various religions have much to answer for.

But I digress.  The reality, on top of all that, is that God’s one world is seriously divided at another level – that of the sharing of resources.  I did begin to hope, about a month ago, that Barack Obama’s leadership and vision would start to lead us down a more equitable path.  I don’t think that he is under any illusions about this, for he said  “The magnitude of our challenges has yet to be met by the measure of our actions.”   He was referring to what he called the four pillars of the immediate issues facing humanity – stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; the pursuit of peace; the preservation of the planet, and a global economy that advances opportunity for all.  Any one of those is of such a magnitude as to deter anyone from attempting to find a solution.  But remember his election slogan: ‘Yes we can’.  We do have the resources to change the world, to close the gap between those who have and those who don’t.  But do we have the will?

There are those who have a ‘can do’ attitude to life, and there are those who suck in through their teeth and say ‘can’t do’.  Which one are you ?

When Jesus uttered those words about how a person could find eternal life, the disciples sucked in through their teeth and said ‘who then can be saved?’  They thought they had done enough in leaving their nets, their occupations, to drop everything and follow Jesus.  We might think so too.  But still Jesus didn’t make it easy for them.  He didn’t congratulate them.  He emphasised the point even further, and ended with the cutting remark that many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

Now there’s a thought.  Or is that something you’d rather think about tomorrow?